contacted an advocacy center today

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-11-2003
contacted an advocacy center today
2
Thu, 02-15-2007 - 6:11pm

The advocates were gone for the day but someone is calling me first thing in the morning. This group is affiliated with a special education attorney. My friend has used them and was able to get her dd into the districs school for kids with moderate to low functioning ASD, MR, or other sever disablilities. She said they were great and will give you their letter head to use when communicating with the school & come to meetings. Apparently the district is familiar with them and the attorney. So hopefully with them on my side we'll get something worked out for Kyle ASAP.

He had another really bad day today. He trashed the special ed teachers classroom. The principal is on board with me that a change needs to be made but he isn't ready to talk alternative placements, not that there are any appropriate ones. I am frankly ready for him to go to the school my friends dd goes to but I don't think they'll let him in because he's so verbal and smart. But if you didn't already know that about him and just looked at him at school this past week you'd probably think he fit right in there. I just want my happy boy back, what ever that takes.

Should we make a sticky post for me to give you the daily melt down updates?
Samantha

Samantha
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-28-2006
Thu, 02-15-2007 - 6:51pm

{{{Samantha and Kyle}}} I'm so sorry you and your son have to go thru this. I have been reading about your situation and I sure hope you guys can find something that will help him. Contacting that office is an excellent idea!

I can't really give any sound advice, just a hug :)

Lainie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 02-16-2007 - 10:37am

Samantha,

This is unfortunately reminding me of Mike's 3rd grade year and what would happen next year in a regular middle school. The only thing that helped was to totally change the placement into something much more safe and calm even if it was apparently below his academic level.

Though I wouldn't go for a full special needs school for mod/severe autism I would look into at least a temporary placement in some sort of SDC type classroom. Perhaps even a learning handicapped type class (this worked well for us). He can get 1:1 instruction and just have it be safe and then slowly work back into mainstream classes.

I would also start to look around if there were other non-public or private schools which may be more suited for a child who is HFA/AS. Some schools that take kids with learning disabilities do well with asperger kids. That is the kind of school mike will be attending in the fall.

At anyrate, I understand the principals thought. He wants to keep Kyle in the LRE, and because of his intelligence the LRE is automatically assumed to be inclusion. That is a mistake that is easily made.

Tell the principal this is an emergency situation and you need to get Kyle into a safe type situation to calm things down. His behavior and safety needs to be first priority right now. Once you have that established then you can start trying inclusion again or slowly working him back into more classes that are like that.

At anyrate, for now you are weeks into this. I doubt a small behavior plan change at this time is going to have the drastic needed affect you need. I think you should definitely push a full placement change or some BIG changes for the time being.

Oh, I know of another kid who basically has an aide and a small room at the school devoted to him for the full day. That is where he gets all his education and after a little bit they started to include him in some of the more successful times of the day. Perhaps even something like that.

Renee

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